The Review

Issue date: 11/13/07 Section: News

Media Credit: Ricky Berl University students living on Cleveland Avenue often complain 'townies' disrupt their parties.

It started as a late night visit to D.P. Dough. Junior Chris Bruce was waiting in line with his friends and talking on the phone. Then he left the store and headed home. Five minutes later, Bruce received a text message: Come back. Fight.

He said he knew who had started the trouble. Earlier he had noticed some guys in line behind his friends who were making a scene. They were townies.

The term "townie" could refer to a pleasant 80-year-old woman who retired near the university. It could refer to the mom, dad and son who watch the Halloween parade together on Main Street. But generally, when university students say "townie," they mean the young, the restless and the violent. With the recent increase in crimes targeting university students, it may be easier than ever to point fingers at these party-crashing kids.

Bruce said by the time he got back to D.P. Dough, his friend was scuffling with the guys he had seen earlier. Apparently, the "townies" made inappropriate comments about a girl who was with his friend.

"They were saying, 'I've been in jail. I know what jail's like,' " Bruce said. "I'm like, 'Yeah, right. What are you, like 20?' "

One of the men they were arguing with said, "I've got something for you." He said he opened the trunk of his car, flashed a gun and placed it in his belt. Then the guys got in the car and sped away.

Bruce said this was not the first time a local showed him a weapon.

Last year, he was partying at his house on Cleveland Avenue when a group of 12 "townies" started to file in, dressed in baggy clothes and oversized hoodies.

Bruce said he attempted to kick them out, but they tried to start a fight. One of them said "You don't want to mess with me anyway," and pulled up his shirt to reveal a 9mm handgun.

He shut the door, locked it and kept partying.

Senior Matt Shreder said he knows all about brawls with "townies" - he has a shattered elbow to prove it.

Shreder said he and his friend Brian were sitting on their porch in their pajamas smoking cigarettes at approximately 3 a.m. on Saturday, Oct. 20, when a car pulled up.

Two "townies" were in the vehicle, he said. One of them, who appeared intoxicated, jumped out of the car and stared at Shreder and his friend. They stared back.

Shreder said the "townie" yelled a profanity and told them to stop looking at him. The students tried to ignore him, but he did not leave. Instead, he approached their porch and started calling them names.

"We're just like, 'Get the hell out of here. We don't know you.' " Shreder said.

The "townie" went back to the car to talk to the driver and then came back to the two students to apologize, he said. Then the man disappeared for a while, walking out of Shreder's sight.

"We were getting really not good vibes," Shreder said.

He said his friend Brian decided to go talk to the car driver, urging him not to park on the street because he would get ticketed. Meanwhile, Shreder went inside the apartment.

"For defense purposes, I took a bat and put it by the door in case anything happened," Shreder said.

The "townie" driver started yelling at Brian by the car, he said. The driver's "townie" friend who had seemingly disappeared for a moment, came running toward them. In response, Shreder hopped a gate and ran toward the scuffle.

That is when he said one of the "townies" pulled out a metal baseball bat.

"Then - boom. He hit me with the bat square in the elbow," Shreder said. "Since my adrenaline was kicking, I didn't even feel it at first, but it completely shattered my elbow."

He said he charged toward the guy who hit him with a bat. They fought and Shreder managed to take the bat from him. Then the "townie" acted as if he had a gun under his clothes.

"Right there, I stopped in my tracks," Shreder said. "I lowered the bat."

He said he punched the "townie" so he fell to the ground. When the police arrived, all four guys ran. Shreder escaped, but he said Brian tripped and was caught. The police charged him with assault in the second degree and menacing. The "townies" were charged with underage drinking.

In police reports, the "townies" were named victims. They told police they were visiting friends in the lot and the students started the fight.

"That's completely false," Shreder said. "They were encroaching on our property. They struck first. They were drunk and looking for trouble."

He said there has always been a problem with "townies" in Newark because they are jealous of students.

"It's only getting worse," Shreder said. "They don't care. They're willing to gamble their lives and willing to gamble our lives. What if I didn't get the bat and he had swung again? It might have been my head."


Open house


Senior Laura Provost lives on Cleveland Avenue and knows open house parties can spin out of control. During one party, she found two males in her kitchen who did not appear to know anyone there. One was demonstrating the correct way to stab someone.

"They were both in white tees, of course," Provost said. "They definitely looked like 'townies.' "

Senior Lee Millstone has had his share of "townie" encounters. He said a group of 10 Newark locals showed up at a party on East Park Place his freshman year.

"They started raging around, knocking people's cups over," Millstone said.

The basement started to clear out as many students became uncomfortable, he said. Eventually, the "townies" caused enough commotion that a fight broke out.

"They didn't come to have fun," he said. "They basically came to just start a fight."

This year, Millstone lives on Chapel Street, where he still encounters problems with young locals. When the girls next door had a party, they would not allow a group of "townies" inside, he said. In response, they kicked in the girls' back door.

Millstone said the young men were being aggressive, yelling at girls as they walked past the house. The police eventually showed up and detained the troublemakers.

That same night, a group of Wilmington residents crashed Millstone's party next door. He said instead of becoming violent, these locals spent the night dancing.

"They were just looking for a good time," he said. "They were funny kids - respectable and nice."

However, Millstone said the majority of his experiences with Newark residents have been negative. When one of his friends told a story about getting jumped the first week of freshman year, he specified that he was jumped by a "townie," not just "some guy."

"It may be a stereotype, but they've given themselves this stereotype," he said.

If Newark residents walk into a party sporting white T-shirts and tattoos, students automatically treat them a certain way and check that their valuable property is stashed away, Millstone said.

Sometimes Provost welcomes Newark residents at her door. She said on Cinco de Mayo last year, she was sitting on her porch intoxicated in the middle of the day.

Provost began shouting "I love Newark High School" to people on the street.

A group of four or five high schoolers heard her yell and approached her. They ended up talking for hours.

"I asked them if they had classes about stealing things or stabbing people," she said. "They laughed. They thought it was funny."

Provost also asked the boys why they try to come to college parties.

"They said, 'Because there's nothing else to do in Newark.' "


Bending the stereotypes


On UrbanDictionary.com, one user defined Newark as home to "the trashiest townies you will ever meet."

But Senior Chris Sparks, who is from Newark and attended Glasgow High School, said locals are not the only ones who demonstrate immaturity.

"There [are] UD students who act the same way and get belligerent and do crazy things," Sparks said. "Just because someone's from around here doesn't mean they go around looking for trouble."

Some Newark residents who dress like "townies" do not fit the mold, like one man Provost knows who works in Newark and has a tattoo on his arm of the Yellowjacket, the Newark High School mascot.

"You look at him and think he might be a townie, but he doesn't act like the stereotypical thug," she said. "He's actually really nice."

Sophomore Sarah Potochney is from Newark, but said she never heard of the word "townie" before she came to college. Potochney said calling someone a "townie" implies they cannot get out of Newark.

"I get pretty upset when people call me a 'townie,' " she said. "Just because I've lived in Newark my whole life doesn't make me a townie."

Senior Matt Scherr grew up in Newark and attended Glasgow High School, but said he does not fit the "townie" stereotype.

"I wear a white tee, but I'm not a gangster," Scherr said. "I've never rolled into anybody's party that I didn't know who they were. I can talk to people in a normal, professional manner."

He said he thinks of himself as a "local student" rather than a "townie." He has friends from Newark, but they all attend the university, so he does not consider them "townies."

"There [are] 'townies' in Newark, don't get me wrong," Scherr said. "But there [are] also people who don't go to the school who are fine. A lot of people are quick to jump to conclusions."


Whose Newark is it, anyway?


City officials promote Newark as a "Wonderful Place to Live," a charming college town located close - but not too close - to Wilmington and Philadelphia. Each fall, more than 16,000 undergraduates flock in, ready to party, and plenty of non-students are ready to party with them.

Provost said "townies" disrupted a Labor Day party she hosted last year, throwing beer for no reason. She said she asked them who they knew at the party and they said no one. Her brother and some friends made them leave.

"I think some of them are resentful," she said. "I guess if it was me, I'd be like, 'I was here first.' "

Scherr said if "townies" attend a college party where they do not know anyone, they should leave.

"It's not their territory," he said. "Yeah, they're from here, but it's on campus. Anywhere a UD bus can run is not 'townie' territory."

Mayor Vance A. Funk III said the people who are most often arrested in Newark are generally not residents. They are visitors from Rising Sun or Elkton, Md., Wilmington and Kennett Square, Pa.

"There is some local kid problem. I can't say there isn't," Funk said. "But we're really surprised with the number of people who are being arrested who are not from here."

He said the problem is perpetual - Elkton residents crashed college parties and started fights when he was a university student more than 40 years ago.


Lt. Matt Donnelly of the Elkton Police Department said he did not have any statistics about juveniles from Elkton visiting the university and causing problems or being arrested.

"Our jurisdiction ends rights there at the Delaware line," Donnelly said. "If some of our folks are going over there causing a problem, we won't know about that."


Then and now: a sociological outlook


Social geography professor April Veness, who has taught at the university for approximately 21 years, lived in Newark for 12 years and served two years on the Town and Gown Committee. Veness has also taught a class called "Newark, Delaware: People, Politics and Place," which compares college towns across the country and examines the social diversity of Newark's population.

This semester, Veness discussed the tensions between university students and "townies" with her social geography class of approximately 28 people. First, the students defined "townies" as young people who do not attend the university and who live nearby, but may or may not live in the town. They agreed that the word is often used as a derogatory term, but they were not using it in that way.

Downtown Newark has always been a magnet for young adults, Veness said. In decades past, student life was centered on Main Street and many students lived there. Students usually encountered "townies" in public spaces, such as the sidewalk, in bars and in restaurants, she said. In public, codes of dress, speech and behavior were monitored by bartenders, waitresses, police and other adults out for the night. Interactions between "townies" and students were more predictable.

City officials created additional mechanisms for controlling behavior on Main Street, Veness said. In the late 1980s, the city established an ordinance that prohibited driving the loop around Main Street and Delaware Avenue more than three times in a row.

"That was their way to curb people coming into town and just joyriding," she said.

But over the past 10 years, the social scene has spread throughout Newark as university students increasingly find housing further away from Main Street, she said.

"It's really about performance," Veness said. "If the college kids don't show up for the show, the townies have no audience."

Many "townies" now find parties at students' off-campus houses, she said.

"In that private space, it gives the illusion that you're buddies and the 'townies' may take more liberties than they have in the past," Veness said. "I think that's one of the things that university students find particularly objectionable. They may think, 'How dare they feel comfortable drinking with us?' "

In the private setting of students' homes, the potential for fights breaking out is much greater, she said. Police and business owners are not present to regulate alcohol intake and general behavior like they are on Main Street.

Veness said she asked her class why "townies" attend parties, knowing they can easily be rebuffed by students. Some students said perhaps "townies" want to build relationships with students.

"There may actually be a sincere desire to get to know people outside of their social sphere so they can better their situation," she said.

Other students took a more negative approach, saying "townies" come to parties to mock or challenge students. Veness said sociologists call this an "oppositional culture," a subgroup that rejects the authority of the mainstream.

"In this view, they're doing it to show their own power in opposition to your power," she said. "They think, 'I can interrupt and create tension in your space.' "

"Townies" may resent students because of the growing gap in socioeconomic status, Veness said. With the DaimlerChrysler plant's impending closure and the overall weakness of the economy, young adults without a college degree may be stuck in a dead-end job. In the same town, they see university students whose prospects are on the rise.

"It's their way of acting out their anger or frustration toward American society," she said. "The American society supporting students and their dreams is not their American society."

911, there is a "townie" in my house

Funk said students make a mistake when their party is crashed and they do not call police immediately.

"When they try to deal with it themselves, it almost always gets out of hand," he said.

Lt. Brian Henry said the Newark Police Department is concerned with recent crimes occurring at house parties, including armed robbery and theft of valuable personal property. On Oct, 6, for example, three unidentified suspects held up nine students at gunpoint at a party in the Main Street Court apartment complex.

"Students are typically the victims of these crimes," Henry said.

He said local residents or "townies" are not the only ones committing crimes at parties.

"If students think it's strictly people from outside the college, that's a misconception," he said. "We have found that it's students as well."

Newark Police officers advise residents against allowing anyone in their homes who is not invited, he said. At the same time, the department understands that not every person who is kicked out of a party willingly leaves.

Police are urging students to call for assistance if they are hosting a party and cannot control attendees on their own. Henry said the police know students might be hesitant to call for help, thinking they will get in trouble for other reasons.

But police want to remove fear of arrest from party hosts' minds.

"The noise violation or alcohol violation won't be enforced if there's a bigger concern of the party getting out of control," he said. "If there's a potential for a robbery or theft, we'd rather prevent a bigger crime from happening while not enforcing the lesser crime." Veness said students and "townies" need to meet outside of parties before tensions can subside.

"UD and the town of Newark need to figure out how to create venues for UD students and townies to come together in a productive way," she said. "These 'townies' have an equal right in this town."

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